Run to You
by rijane
Summary: A bit of fluff - Beth is interested in some physical activity. At Mick's apartment.


Title: Run to You

Author: rijane

Rating: K

Spoilers: post-12:04, pre-Fleur de Lis

Summary: Just a bit of fluff inspired by my morning run (okay, speed walk, but one day I'll actually run the thing, dang it!) and Moonlight music on my mp3 player and general ML obsession at the moment. And I tried a Beth, first person POV in present tense for something different. Hope it works out for me

People are usually surprised when they find out I actually exercise. We're not all supermodels with crazy metabolism or coke habits to keep us in the right dress size. And I live in L.A., of course I work out. I don't know a soul here who doesn't.

Of course, said exercise is usually done in the gym. With a TV and air conditioning. And a juice bar. And a hot trainer. But lately that hot trainer has been replaced by someone with a little more cool. Literally.

Is it my fault that Mick's neighborhood is well lit? That's there's gorgeous architecture to look at while jogging through? Or that there's a gorgeous man high above to fantasize about as I pant and heave and imagine other physical exertions?

And maybe I like running in the hour just before dawn. When the stars are fading, but the moon is full. When the sky looks like indigo ink spilling across cotton candy blue. When the birds and bugs are awake but no one else is. Except him.

Maybe the only person I'm fooling is myself. And I'm not even doing a great job at that.

But I can't help myself. For the last week, I've driven my Prius not north to the 24-hour fitness center Buzzwire pays for, but miles in the opposite direction. I park a mile from his place, stretch like I know what I'm doing (really, I'm an elliptical machine girl – mindless, parked right in front of the TVs and easy to prop a magazine up against), pick the mix on my mp3 player and take off, running down the block. Counting the steps until I reach his apartment.

I don't stop. And I don't want to. I want to imagine him looking down at me and thinking this is all fate again. That I'm not desperate enough to act like a high school girl to get his attention. Of course, he knew me then, even if I didn't know him. He saw the awkward stages and he'll know how tragically similar this is.

Breathing steady and a small sheen of sweat despite the morning chill, I pass the building for the first time. Then I loop the block, down to the ruins of the hotel Mick's family used to visit and by the time I'm back to his apartment, on the balcony side this time as the sun's coming up. It's not bright, it's not even really over the horizon yet. Just enough to change the world from blue to gray.

That's when I stop to look. I pull my calf back, plausible deniability – I'm stretching. I'm the best goddamn stretcher out there. So what if it takes place below the last place I saw him at sunrise. If you have to stretch, you have to stretch.

Then I head back to my car, slowly. Cool down period. My heart is still trying to beat out of my chest, but I'll get used to it. Since I'm running for my life so much, this will totally come in handy, right?

By Saturday morning, I've been caught.

As I round the corner with my steady pounding against the pavement, he's there. Leaning against the wall of his building, waiting.

"Good morning," he politely nods. As though there is absolutely nothing odd about me, ten miles away from my apartment, jogging in front of his place. In full makeup like the Barbie dolls at the gym.

"Oh, Mick! Hi!" I sound too perky. I know it, he knows it. He twists his lips in a grin. I keep jogging in place, trying to decide whether I want to bolt toward him or away from in sheer and utter embarrassment.

"So, is there a reason you've been running away from my building every morning for the last week?"

"I haven't been running away from anything," I respond breathily. I've never been much for talking while exercising. My lungs are busy, thank you very much. "I'm just running. I run, you know."

"I've seen you," he straightens. He's wearing tennis shoes. Tennis shoes. New looking, but definitely not the boots that are fundamental to the Mick St. John dress code. And he's coatless. One of his clingy, long-sleeved shirts - no bullet holes in this one. Yet. And track pants. I can't believe Mick St. John owns track pants. This has knocked me completely off my axis. Doesn't he know he's dressed all wrong?

Except he's dressed all right for what I'm claiming to be up to this morning. Shit.

I do what any woman would do in this situation. I start running.

He's at my side in an instant, of course, sunglasses on and a creased ball cap pulled from some unseen pocket.

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?" he's amused, but I'm vacillating between embarrassed and pissed.

I redden. Of course I did. That was sort of the point.

"I didn't mean to bother you," his pace is perfectly matched to mine, which usually feels bouncy and quick, but this morning I feel like I'm moving through molasses. My breath is coming faster, more gasps and I'm self-conscious next to his undead, unbreathing, unsweating ass.

"No bother," Mick glances around at the still life of his pre-dawn neighborhood. The street lights are still on and the occasional car cuts through the shadows. We're back to silence. Less comfortable, more awkward.

I try to concentrate on my form, not his but it's impossible.

"This is silly," I reply. I'm sticking to short sentences. It's bad enough he could run to Long Beach and back before I finished this five-mile circuit, I don't need to gasp like a lifelong smoker while he bobs along, waiting for me to explain myself.

"What's silly?" his rumbly voice is as even as it ever is. I decide I'm going to practice the circular breathing from my band camp days.

"You running with me. You could go a whole lot faster than this," I give up on the circular breathing thing since I now feel like I'm going to pass out. Back to the good old fashioned huffing and puffing.

"So could you. If you needed to," he said as we edged closer to the ruins that were my turning point back to his apartment. He leads a little. He obviously knows the route I've been taking.

"Not the same thing." It's like when I pretend to need my father's help moving a bookshelf I could easily lift myself.

"Would you rather I ran loops around you just to prove I can?"

"No," I'd rather you run right in front of me so I can watch you.

"If it makes you feel better, in about 15 minutes you'll be able to run much further and much faster than I will," his glance slides toward the eastern sky. The rays are beginning to glint off buildings in the far distance.

Silence. Mick tries again.

"When did you start running?"

"Ages ago." My calves are beginning to burn. We're going faster than I'm used to, but I'll be damned if I'll admit it. "I was on the track team."

He chuckles. I forgot for a second that I can't fudge facts with him. I was on the track team for two weeks in high school. And I did the pole vault – until I hit myself upside the head with the pole and ended my track career.

"Okay, so not the track team exactly," I brush at the hairs that have slipped from my ponytail and are now plastered in sweat against the side of my face. "But I run. Usually away from bad guys and killer vampires, but I run."

"I wish you'd do more of it. If you'd pick flight instead of fight, you wouldn't get into nearly as much trouble."

"And I wouldn't be nearly as good a reporter either," I remind him. He's like a mother hen. Seriously. I'm a grown woman with a job to do. And a vampire guardian angel to watch my back. Of all the people out there, I think I'm most entitled to put my neck on the line.

"Don't you ever want to just cover movie premieres and glitzy parties? Nice, safe stories?" Mick almost sighs. Maybe my guardian angel was getting tired.

"I do safe stories," I insist. I pull out one last burst of speed before my body refuses to go past a jog. Traitor. "I reviewed that restaurant in Riverside last week."

"You just wanted the free food." Grr. I wish I could growl at him. He's right. I always volunteer for the restaurant reviews the weekends I don't want to cook.

"I'll take one 'safe story' for every week you go without getting shot, okay?" I offer.

Mick hasn't gone without taking a little lead to the chest since I met him. I could probably pay Carl to pump a few rounds into him to make sure I don't have to take any fluff pieces or cover any 100th birthday parties. Or photo shoots.

"Deal."

I can see I'm going to have to count the bullets in the jar he thinks I don't know about. I know about lots of things he thinks I don't. I'm a snooper, okay?

We're a less than mile from his apartment, ten minutes from sunrise and a minute from my pride giving way. I give up and speed walk. His long legs match up with mine minus the "speed" part. I keep it brisk because I know the sun is rising. Even though I want nothing more than to keep up our conversation now that it's found its stride, it's almost over. Seems like that's how things usually go with us.

Mick looks back and forth from the horizon to his door, measuring. He keeps his pace up and we're almost there. I can't think of a thing I can say to keep him longer. He tucks himself into the shadow of the entryway, a little less tense now that he's out of the reach of the sun.

I stop and once I'm not in motion, I feel how sweaty and icky I am. I can't possibly smell good. Especially to a vamp nose like Mick's. but I'm willing him to invite me up. I'm mentally chanting it, trying to produce some of my own mojo like Mick's vamp appeal. I can see that he's not buying it, though. He's going up and I'm dragging my sorry, tired-of-running butt back the last mile to my car.

"Bye Mick," I try to affect the uncaring, light-hearted tone that is the opposite of my attitude right now.

"Bye." He pauses. Then, from the safety of the alcove, hand on the door, calls, "Hey Beth?"

I turn, playing out a dozen scenarios in my head of what he'll say. A rehash of the balcony scene, orders to jog a little closer to home, a lecture about being out in the dark by myself, a reminder that I have a perfectly good gym and to leave him alone.

He grins. "See you tomorrow morning?"


End file.
